Thirteen hours, or two nights
Aoraki is about four and a half hours from Christchurch and four from Queenstown, up a fifty-five kilometre dead-end highway. Day tours do the round trip in twelve to thirteen hours, which is a long time on a bus for a couple of hours at the mountain. This page prices all four day trips, says exactly how much walking each one includes, and makes the case for staying instead.
Quick answer
The short answer. If you must do it in a day, take the Queenstown trip at $152 — it is the only one that actually walks the Hooker Valley Track, and it carries 566 reviews at 4.8. If you can give it two nights instead, do, because everything good here happens before nine in the morning and after four in the afternoon.
Every trip, current fare
All twelve sorted by price. The day tours are the cheapest hours you can buy here; they are also the ones where most of the time is spent on a bus.
| Trip | Duration | Price | On the ice | Cost per hour | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mount Cook & Lake Tekapo Day TourThe cheapest day out from Christchurch | 13 h | $130 | No — from the road | $10.00 | 4.8 · 632 |
| Mt Cook & Hooker Valley Day TourThe Hooker Valley, with transport and a guide | 12 h | $152 | No — the valley track | $12.67 | 4.8 · 566 |
| Mt Cook, Tekapo & Tasman GlacierAoraki, Tekapo and the Tasman viewpoint | 13 h | $193 | No — viewpoints | $14.85 | 5.0 · 3 |
| 25-Minute Alpine LandingThe cheapest way onto the snow | 25 min | $210 | Yes, on snow | $504.00 | 4.7 · 514 |
| 30-Minute Alpine LandingHalf an hour, with a landing | 30 min | $268 | Yes, on snow | $536.00 | 4.8 · 46 |
| Ski Plane & Helicopter ComboThe only ski-plane landing in the country | 45 min | $304 | Yes, ski plane on snow | $405.33 | 4.7 · 356 |
| Tekapo Stargazing & Mount CookAoraki by day, the darkest sky by night | 2 days | $320 | No | $6.67 | 5.0 · 9 |
| 40-Minute National Park FlightForty minutes over the national park | 40 min | $351 | Yes, on snow | $526.50 | 4.7 · 22 |
| 40-Minute Tasman Glacier FlightThe whole length of the Tasman from above | 40 min | $362 | Yes, on the névé | $543.00 | 4.7 · 11 |
| 3-Hour Tasman Glacier Heli HikeThe only way to walk on the Tasman | 3 h | $497 | ~90 min walking | $165.67 | 4.9 · 322 |
| 3-Hour Heli Hike to the TasmanThe second heli hike on the same ice | 3 h | $523 | ~90 min walking | $174.33 | 4.8 · 259 |
| Tasman Heli Hike from QueenstownAoraki in a day, from Queenstown | 6 h | $995 | ~90 min walking | $165.83 | 4.3 · 10 |
The four day trips
The distinction that matters is how much time is spent out of the vehicle.
Twelve hours, 566 reviews at 4.8, and the only day tour on this page that walks the Hooker Valley Track. If you are doing Aoraki in a day and you want to have walked somewhere, this is the one.
Thirteen hours and 632 reviews at 4.8, the most-reviewed trip on this site. It takes in Tekapo, the Lake Pukaki viewpoint and the village, with time on the valley tracks rather than just the car park.
Thirteen hours, adds the Tasman Valley and the glacier lookout to the Tekapo route. Fewer reviews so far, and the only day tour that gets you to the glacier viewpoint.
The Mackenzie is an International Dark Sky Reserve and this is the version that uses the night as well as the day. Two days removes the worst thing about all the others, which is the return leg.
Not a coach trip: scenic flights over the Main Divide both ways with the glacier walk in the middle. It removes eight hours of driving entirely, and puts all your weather risk into one day.
The case against a day trip
A day trip buys you the middle of the day. Everything worth having here is at the ends of it.
A Christchurch day tour is about nine hours of driving and roughly three or four at Aoraki, and those three or four are in the middle of the day.
That is precisely the window this park is worst in. The light is flat and straight down, the car parks are full, the coaches are all there at once, and the Hooker Valley has more people on it than at any other hour. Everything good here happens outside that window: flights before nine because the air is still, and the Hooker Valley after four when the coaches have gone and the light comes down the valley.
None of which means do not do it. If Aoraki is one stop on a two-week route and the alternative is not seeing it at all, take the day tour and enjoy it. But if you have any flexibility, two nights in the village or in Twizel changes the trip completely — and it is also the only way to make a heli hike a sensible booking, because you need a spare morning for the weather.
If you do stay, the flight goes in the morning and the free walk in the evening.
The Hooker Valley Track→Driving yourself
SH80 is a dead end. It leaves SH8 at the foot of Lake Pukaki and runs fifty-five kilometres up the western shore to the village. There is no through route and no loop. Everything you do here involves driving back down it.
Fuel before you turn off. Twizel and Lake Tekapo are the last sensible stops. Do not plan on filling up at the village.
Snow can close it. DOC says so on its own track pages, which is unusual and worth noting. In winter, check highway conditions the night before and again in the morning.
The Pukaki viewpoint is worth the stop. Halfway up, the lake opens out with Aoraki at the head of it, and in the right light it is the photograph most people remember from the whole drive. Every day tour stops here, and self-drivers routinely blow past it.
Book direct
From Christchurch or Queenstown, cheapest first.
★ 4.8 · 632 reviews
★ 4.8 · 566 reviews
★ 5.0 · 3 reviews
★ 5.0 · 9 reviews
Common questions
Yes. Day tours run twelve to thirteen hours from Christchurch or Queenstown, of which about nine are travelling. The best of them is the Queenstown trip at $152, because it actually walks the Hooker Valley Track.
About 330 kilometres and four and a half hours by road, via Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki. Day tours cover it in thirteen hours there and back.
About four hours by road via the Lindis Pass. Day tours run twelve hours. There is also a flight-based day trip at $995 that includes the glacier heli hike.
If the alternative is not going, yes. But a day tour buys you the middle of the day, which is the worst light and the busiest hours. Two nights in the village or Twizel changes the trip completely and is the only way to book a heli hike sensibly.
It varies, and it is the main thing to check. The Queenstown trip walks the Hooker Valley Track. The Christchurch trips include time on the valley tracks and at the viewpoints, but less of it.
The village itself if you can get a bed, otherwise Twizel at about forty-five minutes or Lake Tekapo at about an hour. Both are cheaper, and both leave you close enough for an early flight.
Go deeper
Six marked tracks from the village, with real DOC times and distances.
On the iceThe only walk on the longest glacier in New Zealand, and what the three hours contain.
The famous oneTen kilometres return, three swing bridges, a lake full of icebergs, and it is free.
The hard one2,200 steps and 600 metres of climb, and where the walking stops and mountaineering starts.
The free view300 steps to a viewpoint over a lake that did not exist in 1970.
PricesThree heli hikes priced against the flights and against the walks that cost nothing.
3-Hour Tasman Glacier Heli Hike
★ 4.9 · 646 reviews · Free cancellation 24 h